Call centre jobs in Jamaica and all over the Caribbean could be in a lot of trouble if this proposed law gets passed in the United States.

So US Senators Ruben Gallego and Jim Justice have introduced a new bill called the Keep Call Centers in America Act, 2025. And the bill aims to do just what the name says, keep call centres in the US.

One of the key points of the bill is that a company must give 120 days notice before moving its customer service jobs to another country.

That company would then get added to a public list by the US Department of Labor. Companies on the list would not be able to get new federal grants or guaranteed loans for five years. 

For companies that already have federal awards, moving jobs abroad could mean paying monthly fines or even losing those awards altogether. 

The law would also require call centres to tell people where the person they are speaking to is located, and whether they are talking to a live human or an artificial intelligence program. 

Then, if the caller asks, they must connect them to a human operator in the United States. 

Oh, and on top of that, federal customer service contracts would only go to companies that keep their call centres in the US.

So clearly, the idea is to keep more of these jobs in the country and disincentivize companies from offshoring the jobs.

Now, this could have a serious impact on Caribbean countries like Jamaica and Belize that have built strong business process outsourcing industries.

Jamaica’s BPO sector has grown rapidly over the last 20 years. As of 2024, call centres employed around 60,000 people. In Belize, BPOs employ about 16,000 people and pay out roughly US$150 million in annual salaries. 

Jamaican BPO firms have also invested heavily in the sector recently. iBEX spent millions building out three massive centres in Portmore. So if this law passes it could slow down growth of the BPO sector massively

Now for the most part, offshoring has been a win-win for US companies because they get skilled English-speaking workers, in a time zone close to the US, but usually at much cheaper costs. 

But on the flip side, companies might still choose the Caribbean for customer service work, especially if they do not rely on US government funding.

There’s also the possibility that the law does not pass, or it does pass with major changes that aren’t so strict. Even so, it might also be a sign for Caribbean countries with large BPO sectors to diversify and become less dependent on those US customer service jobs.

And that’s the bottom line.